What are the differences between pucker and tuck, as verbs?
I found that they can both mean "pull or gather up", "contract". Is it correct?
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Sign up to join this communityWhat are the differences between pucker and tuck, as verbs?
I found that they can both mean "pull or gather up", "contract". Is it correct?
While some senses of tuck overlap with the sense of pucker (“To pinch or wrinkle; to squeeze inwardly, to dimple or fold”), most do not. The first sense that wiktionary lists for tuck is “To pull or gather up (an item of fabric)”. Typically a tuck, in the fabric sense, is a fairly neat sewn fold, while a pucker is more likely to be an unsightly wrinkle, eg as when a thread drawn too tightly blotches the appearance of a shirtfront.
The phrasal verb pucker up (“To contract a facial feature so as to form wrinkles; used especially of the lips when whistling or kissing”) has no tuck counterpart, and wiktionary's sense 8 of tuck has no pucker counterpart.